ART CITIES:London-No Man is an Island
In 1985 NASA published the book “Living Aloft: Human Requirements for Extended Spaceflight” exploring how humans adjusted psychologically and socially to space. The book discussed the three broad stages of human reaction to prolonged isolation, confinement, and stress. The first stage is a period of heightened anxiety produced by the perceived dangers in the situation. The second stage involved establishing a day to day routine, peppered with moments of depression. Stage three is a dangerous period of anticipation, leading to “emotional outbursts, aggressiveness, and rowdy behaviour.” All three stages are very familiar to anyone who has made it through the restriction of the COVID lockdown.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Almine Rech Gallery Archive
In the group exhibition “No Man is an Island” are on show works by: Rhea Dillon, Madelynn Green, Li Qing, George Rouy, Sally Saul and Francesco Vezzoli. Rhea Dillon’s emotive works questions the freedom of representation and experience, beyond the structures of white supremacy. Her films, photographs and abstract paintings explore emotional narratives and how they are framed by ideas of narrative and queerness, while elevating the African British diasporic experience. Madelynn Green’s dense figurative paintings, drawn from family and archive photography, highlight the joys of densely packed social space. The Slade teaching fellow with a background in political science is drawn to moments of liberation which are found in nightclubs or other densely crowded scenes. Li Qing’s works also question ideas of perception, both conceptually and visually. His fragmented, narrative works, which range from painting to video, question reality and how it is complicated by the Internet and social media. He takes on intimacy questions to push and pull of connection, and how we as viewers connect to the symbolism of touch itself. In George Rouy’s fluid figurative portraits we see the physical encounter at its most ecstatic. His vibrant, colourful paintings question the representation of the body and gender in art history. His canvases depict contorted bodies brimming with sensuous ambiguity. Sally Saul, in contrast, depicts the kitsch and joyful pleasure of romantic connection. She has been working with the medium since the late 1980s, and her textured, conceptual objects explored the representation of gender, memory and emotion with signature humour. Francesco Vezzoli’s take on the romantic is more baroque. His videos, installations, sculptures and collage pieces touch on classical and Italian art history, as much as the hyper camp of advertising, celebrity and politics. The “Eternal Kiss” (2015) is a neo-neo-classical sculpture, locking found Roman heads into a timeless embrace.
Info: Almine Rech Gallery, Grosvenor Hill, Broadbent House, London, Duration 1-26/9/20, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 11:00-17:00, www.alminerech.com
